Creators of “participatory defense” – a community organizing model for people facing charges, their families, and communities to impact the outcome of cases and transform the landscape of power in the court system

detainer requests

After four months in immigration detention, 13 year old Elias comes home. After facing charges, he was placed on an immigration hold, and unlike other Bay Area counties, San Mateo enforces detainer requests regardless of age. But because of his mom’s advocacy and supported by community, Elias is coming home to spend Christmas with his family.

A longer story on juvenile ICE holds is coming, but we wanted to share with you the moment that Patricia and Elias were reunited at the San Francisco Airport on Wednesday, December 21.

The Santa-Clara-fication spreads. Last week, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a similar policy to Santa Clara urging the City to limit cooperation with federal immigration officials and not spend county resources to do ICE’s job. Great job to the San Francisco Immigrant Rights Defense Committee for pushing this forward, and to Supervisor Eric Mar for sponsoring the resolution. We need more and more of our jurisdictions to turn the tide against the criminalization of immigrants. Post by Charisse Domingo

SF supervisors urge city to defy federal immigration holds

by Steven Jones
12/14/11

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors yesterday (Tues/13) approved a resolution calling for the city to adopt stronger policies for resisting federal efforts to deport undocumented immigrants who live here. It is the latest move to support the city’s Sanctuary City status and counter the federal Secure Communities (S-Com) program, a new database that allows the feds to circumvent local policies protecting local immigrants who have been arrested but not convicted of any crimes.